1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a record medium cartridge storing box for storing a number of record medium cartridges in a removable manner. Particularly, the present invention relates to a record medium cartridge storing box having a shape and configuration especially adapted for use in an automatic cartridge exchanging apparatus.
2. Related Art Statement
A known automatic cartridge exchanging apparatus includes a cartridge storing means for storing a number of record medium cartridges, a recording and reproducing means for recording and reproducing information on and from the record medium cartridges, a cartridge transporting means for transporting the record medium cartridges between the cartridge storing means and the recording and reproducing means, and a controlling means for controlling said cartridge storing means, recording and reproducing means and cartridge transporting means. Said cartridge storing means includes a plurality of cartridge storing boxes each storing a number of cartridges. Such automatic cartridge exchanging apparatus has been widely used in large scale computer systems or broadcasting systems, in which an extremely large number of record medium cartridges are treated.
Usually, the cartridge storing boxes provided in the cartridge storing means are arranged around a rotating member such that respective record medium cartridges can be easily and speedily indexed into a position for transferring a cartridge between the cartridge storing means and the cartridge transporting means. Therefore, during the rotation of the rotating member, all cartridges are subjected to a centrifugal force and are liable to be removed from the cartridge storing boxes. In order to prevent the cartridges from being accidentally removed out of the cartridge storing box, a cartridge retaining means is provided in each of cartridge storing compartments which are formed in the box one on the other. Said cartridge retaining means comprises a resilient member which is resiliently urged against a cartridge stored in a cartridge storing compartment. Therefore, the cartridge stored in the cartridge storing compartment has to be transferred into a hand over means of the transferring means against the resilient force of the resilient member.
Mainly due to the presence of the above mentioned cartridge retaining means, in the known automatic cartridge exchanging apparatus, only one kind of record medium cartridge can be treated. Therefore, when it is required to treat two kinds of record medium cartridges having different sizes, e.g. 3480 tape cartridge and DLT tape cartridge, it is necessary to provide two automatic cartridge exchanging apparatuses, one for cartridges having one size and the other for cartridges having the other size. This is apparently disadvantageous in view points of cost and space.
In order to mitigate the above mentioned drawback, two cartridge storing means may be provided in a single automatic cartridge exchanging apparatus, or a single cartridge storing means may be divided into two sections, one for one kind of cartridges and the other for the other kind of cartridges. However, in the former case, it is practically difficult to arrange two cartridge storing means in a limited space of the single automatic cartridge exchanging apparatus. In a latter case, the numbers of record medium cartridges of respective sizes which can be stored in respective sections of the cartridge storing means are decreased. For instance, when the cartridge storing means is divided into two halves having the same capacity, the number of cartridges which can be stored in respective sections is reduced by two. Furthermore, when a division ratio is once determined, it could not be easily changed. This does not meet a user's requirements.